Facebook quietly rolled out a new application earlier this week. The politics application gives users the ability to support their favorite politicians and view each politician’s profile. Additionally you can view which politicians your friends support. A bunch of other political applications have launched since the Facebook platform opened up but this is the first one to be developed by the Facebook team. Aside from the Newsvine Election ’08 application which has over 130,000 users, most of the applications have failed to gain popularity. The Facebook politics application on the other hand has had over 270,000 users add the application. One interesting aspect of this application is that Facebook did not automatically register users to the application. With previous features such as the “Notes” application, users were automatically added. It looks like this application has spread completely via viral means because I haven’t seen the application promoted elsewhere on Facebook. If you’ve seen other promotions, please let me know. I would assume that Facebook naturally has a leg up when releasing applications, just as Kevin Rose has an advantage when he diggs articles (Kevin Rose has 100% of his Diggs hit the front page). As of now the application is pretty basic but they will be rolling out additional features in the near future. Some of the features include “voter registration tools, political issue forums, and our Election Pulse showing how each race in ’08 is shaping up.” If you want to get political on Facebook and live in the U.S., go grab the U.S. politics appliciation.
Politics Comes to Facebook
Posted by Nick O'Neill on July 5th, 2007 3:59 PM
Recommended Articles
Get Social Media Marketing Secrets from Experts
Mediabistro Event
Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including Morin Oluwole (Facebook), Michael Brito (Edelman Digital), and Tim Devane (bitly). Register now.
Send us a Tip
tips@allfacebook.comSocial Media Jobs
Let your next job find you!
Featured Company
 |
Jobs of the Day
Hire The Best in Social Media
Tap into our vast network of talented social media pros.
Post a risk-free job listing
![[Inside Social Apps 2012]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/ISA2012_336x100_F_RegisterNow.gif)
![[AllFacebook Stats: Facebook Analytics for Your Business]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/stpro_allfacebookstats.gif)
![[How can Facebook change your business?]](http://www.allfacebook.com/wordpress/wp-content/themes/allfacebook2/images/FMB_A_MAY2011_336x100_F.gif)
Upcoming Events
Inside Social Apps
February 8-9, 2012 | San Francisco
Developing & monetizing on social & mobile platforms
AllFacebook Marketing Conference
June 28-29, 2012 | San Francisco
Your how-to guide for Facebook marketing.
Actually, Facebook *did* add it to people's profiles automatically.In the past, if you had gone to a candidate's profile and pressed the "Support this candidate" box, then I believe you were added to a group with the same name. Later, I think Facebook changed it to just being a "friend" of that politician.Now, they have gone and silently installed this app on the profiles of everyone who had clicked the link to support a candidate. I know this because they added it to my own profile after I indicated my support of a Senatorial candidate last year, an experience corroborated by some of my Facebook friends as well.
Comment by Ravi — July 5, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
Actually, Facebook *did* add it to people's profiles automatically.
In the past, if you had gone to a candidate's profile and pressed the "Support this candidate" box, then I believe you were added to a group with the same name. Later, I think Facebook changed it to just being a "friend" of that politician.
Now, they have gone and silently installed this app on the profiles of everyone who had clicked the link to support a candidate. I know this because they added it to my own profile after I indicated my support of a Senatorial candidate last year, an experience corroborated by some of my Facebook friends as well.
Comment by Ravi — July 5, 2007 @ 2:01 pm